In the News (Thu 24 May 18)

Commodore needed its next computer to be a serious upgrade from the C64 if it was to successfully battle its arch nemesis; It needed to keep Jack Tramiel's, Atari, from being successful with their rumored new "ST" line.

An exception was the Commodore 1902 monitor for $400 ($100 more than the price of a new C128!) which was required to use the new 128's advanced 80 column mode.

The Commodore 128D: In an effort to extend the life of this powerful multitalented machine, Commodore introduced a slight derivative of the 128 called the Commodore 128D in 1987.

Commodore reigned practically supreme during the mid-to-late 1980's; estimate for total units sold range as high as 22 million, and several hundred thousand or more are estimated still in active use around the world.

Commodore's desire to sink the 64 and 128 was low in the eyes of many loyalists, but not ill-conceived: at long last, Gould was finally reading the writing on the wall.

Ultimately, the Commodore curse jittered Tulip enough to shed their once coveted Commodore trademark to Yeahronimo, the USA company responsible for the media and music arm of the original Commodore plan, on 27 December 2004 for a total of 24 million euro to be paid by 2010.

The Commodore128 and 128D came out in 1985, the same year as the amazing Commodore Amiga.

While the Commodore128 has a nice, high resolution 80 column display, the most powerful BASIC programming language ever released by Commodore, and a built-in C64mode for convenience, it wasn't enough to compete with the new crop of computers.

With this in mind, using the old Tramiel philosophy, Commodore pulled another proverbial 'rabbit from the hat' and introduced the Commodore128 to the world at the winter Consumer Electronics Show held in January in Las Vegas.

Commodore engineers did a masterful job of creating a computer capable of running the vast library of CP/M based business software and easily switching to run the C-64 software complete with all of its great graphics and sound capabilities.

To accomplish this Commodore used the entire C-64 KERNAL is the Commodore Operating System with all the routines nessasary to start-up the computer burned into a ROM chip.', LEFT, WIDTH, '185')">KERNAL and BASIC 2.0 Read Only Memory: This is the permanent memory where the computers operating instructions are stored.

Furthermore, the 2.0 revision of Commodore BASIC that was incorporated into the C64 was quite limited, and lacked keywords to handle the system's graphical and sound capabilities.

While the MMU was designed to handle more than 128kB, the chips that were actually produced and used in the C128 cannot do so; thus memory expansions beyond 128kB, the so-called RAM Expansion Units, contained their own memory controller which would move blocks of memory between the main and expansion RAM.

The Commodore 128D was released in the summer of 1986; it was an updated version of the C128 with a detached keyboard and a 1571 disk drive in the same box as the main system unit, providing a sleeker, more professional-looking appearance, much like that of a desktop PC.

The Commodore128 has two RAM banks (bank 0 and bank 1), each consisting of 64 kB RAM, and the memory configuration also defines which of the two RAM banks that should be switched in (the other one is switched out).

The VDC chip in Commodore128 DCR (the metal case model that was mainly sold in North America) has 64 kB of RAM memory while the VDC chip in all other Commodore128 models by default has 16 kB of memory (expandable to 64 kB).

Commodore128 computers where the VDC chip has 64 kB of RAM memory have better graphics capabilities when the VDC chip is used.

The Commodore128 (aka C128) was Commodore Business Machines final 8 bit computer (the C65 doesn't count as it was never completed and never commercially released).

The 128 was released in three models - the first looked like the a larger 64C (and the design was repeated in the later Amiga 500, 600 and 1200) - the "flat" 128.

The second model was a rather nifty plastic box with a carry handle and slide in keyboard that allowed the machine to become a "luggable" (the 128D) and the last model was the metal cased cost-reduced variant (the 128DCR).

www.commodore128.org (392 words)

Commodore 64/128 Kermit(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-06)

Kermit for the Commodore 64/128 includes VT100 and Tektronix terminal emulation and a basic Kermit protocol implementation for file transfer.

We do not have any Commodores here to make diskettes for you, so you must either follow the directions for downloading and bootstrapping, or else obtain a diskette from a user group, if there still are any.

Commodore Kermit is written in a language called CROSS, a portable assembler.

The Commodore128 is like having an advanced Commodore 64 computer with several different modes of operation and additional capabilities.

This is a switchbox and cable for connecting a Commodore 64 to a television.

This cable is ideal for both composite (40 column mode) and RGB (80 column mode) on the Commodore128 using one of these compatible monitors.

www.oldsoftware.com /Commodore.html (5580 words)

Commodore(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-06)

The Commodore128 in all its forms, as you may know, was one of Commodore's attempts to produce a sequel to their fabulously successful Commodore 64, one of the

It ran almost all Commodore 64 software, which means software producers could sell Commodore 64 software to C64 and C128 users, but only sell C128 software to the much smaller crowd of C128 users, so they basically made C64 software.

Commodore128 Documents: Source for several general and technical documents

As the middle 1980's rolled around, Commodore had learned some hard lessons about making promises they couldn't keep (CP/M compatibility in the Commodore 64), and about producing machines that weren't compatible or even comparable with the machines they were purported to be upgrading (the 264 series).

With these lessons in mind, Commodore engineers produced a computer that would be their crowning achievement.

A computer that is a true upgrade over its predecessors, sporting 128k of memory, RGBI monitor compatibility for sharp video output, a keyboard to rival that of their business computers, and a significant upgrade to their built-in BASIC interpreter and operating system.